Page:Edgar Jepson--the four philanthropists.djvu/81

75 "We shall be very pleased," I said.

They took their leave and went.

"Well," I said to Angel when they had gone, "you're in the thick of it now. Already you're an accomplice after the fact in the removal of Pudleigh."

"I don't care," she said.

"I tell you what, you'd better join us outright, and take shares in the Company," I said, smiling.

"I will, if it's a matter of getting rid of wretches like Pudleigh," she said firmly.

I had spoken in jest, but she was in earnest.

"Of course we are only going to remove objectionable people, the wretches who despoil the widow and orphan, and grind down the poor," I said.

And then I saw that if she joined the Company she might be exceedingly useful to us; that at any rate her association with it would invest philanthropy with a new charm. I began to weigh carefully the reasons for and against her joining, and had made up my mind that we could easily keep her out of danger, when she interrupted me by saying:

"Whatever am I to do for clothes? That horrible landlady has taken my things to pay the rent for my room. I have nothing but what I have on."

"We'll soon have those clothes," I said. "Landladies can't play a game like that. Will